


we're not so starry-eyed anymore

by catteo



Category: Savages (2012), Savages - All Media Types, Savages Series - Don Winslow
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-02
Updated: 2015-01-02
Packaged: 2018-03-04 21:36:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3091124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catteo/pseuds/catteo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes surviving is the hardest thing to do.</p><p> </p><p>  <i>All I wanted was a sliver to call mine, and all I wanted was a shimmer in your shine to make me bright</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	we're not so starry-eyed anymore

**Author's Note:**

  * For [waltzmatildah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/waltzmatildah/gifts).



> For [](http://archiveofourown.org/users/waltzmatildah/pseuds/waltzmatildah%E2%80%9Dwaltzmatildah</a>%20who%20prompted:%0A%0AChon/O%0A%0A<i>And%20when%20you%20broke%20sideways%0AI%20wanted%20you,%20I%20needed%20you%0AOh,%20oh,%20%0Ato%20make%20me%20better...</i>)

1

Fuck.

2

O screams it at the sky.

 

          Screams it into the solid muscle of Chon’s shoulder, hard and unyielding beneath her jaw.

 

                    Whispers it into the blood-stained sand that lies to her left. A single crimson finger inches across the desert floor away from where Ben’s hand lies. His body is right there but, no matter how hard she tries, O can’t seem to find him. Chon pulls her up and away. 

 

A rusty stain spreads across Chon’s shirt as she clings to him. She can taste iron and salt on her tongue. Swallows it down with the grief that threatens to tighten its grip on her throat and choke her until she’s gone

gone

gone.

 

They run.

3

Chon and O.

 

          ChonandO.

 

OandChon.

 

There’s a ghost dancing in the spaces between them. A vital piece 

          missing 

out in the desert waste. A pure heart lies buried at a crossroads, waiting for the devil to arrive. Only the devil’s already here, dancing on the graves of the people that they used to be.

 

Chon wishes that he had something, _anything_ , left to bargain with, but he knows that he sold his soul years ago. Left it in blistering sands half a word away. 

          I-Rock-and-Roll. 

          Stanland.

He thinks about the irony of that. You fight a war and survive, but it’s peacetime that blows your fucking life apart.

 

Now they’re only two thirds of a fractured whole. And everybody knows that 

you can’t…

          build an Emerald City… 

                    with these grains of sand.

4

O wishes that she was Dorothy and she could fly away home. Chon’s arms are like an anchor, tethering her to this present that she

wants  
to  
fucking  
forget.

 

But this isn’t a fairytale, she knows that. There are no happy endings and they’ll never be the same again.

5

They fuck.

 

O is silent.

Chon slides his hands up her body, gentle, gentle, gentle. Hands feather-light.

 

Chon knows that this is a paradox.

          /’parədɒks / (noun) / a seemingly absurd proposition which, when investigated, may prove to be true.

 

Ben was always the gentle one.

O was always loud.

 

Chon wonders if O can feel the moment that his heart shatters, dreams crumbling to dust and ashes, scattered on the winds of a Mexican night.

6

They go back to Laguna. Where else?

 

It’s almost a relief to see Paqu.

 

(O, _darling_ , you look like hell. When was the last time you slept? Why do you insist on ruining your looks with all these ridiculous brands on your skin? You’ll never be rid of them. Won’t you let me take you to my therapist?)

          O tries. She really does. She sits in a downtown office, surrounded by SoCal housewives crying about their cheating husbands and their sagging racks, and she _tries_.

 

Lasts four sessions before she realises that there are some things that talking will never fix. There’s a beauty in the ravaged silence of the emptiness that Ben used to fill.

7

Sometimes O dreams of the before.

 

          (The Before)

**EXT. BEACH – DAY**

**BEN and CHON lie side by side on the sand passing a JOINT between them. O sits and watches, smiling as she RUNS HER FINGERS through BEN’S HAIR.**

** BEN **

**What’s up, O?**

** O **

**My libido.**

**CHON laughs at that.**

** CHON **

**Not exactly news, O.**

** O **

**Well then, aren’t you going to do something about it?**

**CHON grins at BEN before getting to his feet and reaching his hands out to the TWO of them. They WALK back to the HOUSE, shoulder to shoulder. O, positioned between the boys, throws her head back and LAUGHS.**

She wakes up alone.

8

Chon vanishes for days at a time. He returns with livid welts on his skin, a language of blue and green that O recongises only too well. Punishment that doesn’t fit the crime.

 

She can smell gunpowder on his skin, sharp and terrifying, like a promise of a future that holds nothing but war.

 

O adapts.

         (You weren’t expecting that. But she’s adaptable, is our O. She’s a fucking chameleon; the cerulean and emerald mapping her body a more permanent reminder of all the things they’ve lost.)

 

Chon’s hands shake as he teaches O how to dismantle a gun. How to slot the pieces back together. How to  
ready  
aim  
fire  
sayonara  
motherfuckers.

 

Her breathing is even and her hands are steady. She holds Chon in her arms and slowly pulls him away from the edge. He doesn’t come willingly. She can feel him straining against her, craving the oblivion she can feel hovering just out of reach.

 

O puts the gun to her own temple. The ice-cold kiss of metal on warm flesh makes her feel alive for the first time in forever.

 

          She pulls the trigger.

9

Chon’s scream drowns out the sound of the firing pin hitting the empty chamber and he’s at her side in the space between heartbeats.

Laughter bubbles up inside her, unexpected. 

Chon grips her hard enough to bruise and it feels nothing like betrayal.

10

The gun lies forgotten as O carefully slides Chon’s shirt from his body and traces his scars with gentle fingers. It’s been so long since she saw him in daylight that she’s almost forgotten how beautiful he is, this weapon of hers, forged in the white-hot rage of grief.

 

Chon: the sword  
O: the avenging angel

 

They never say his name, but O traces the letters across the broad planes of Chon’s back, a tattoo of loss to match her own.  
B  
          E  
                    N

 

O takes Chon in her mouth and, for a while, it’s just the two of them in this dance, falling headlong into the welcoming arms of oblivion.

11

Chon and O.

 

They’re getting used to it.

 

Chon claims O’s mouth with his own as they stand in the ruined castle that used to belong to a queen. Vermillion streaks dance across O’s hair and brand their skin, the vibrant fire of a  
          promise  
          kept.

12

They dance on graves and burn the world to ashes.

 

O screams and Chon is  
          fire and  
                    anger.

 

They’re nothing like they were before, but they’re swift retribution and it’s enough.

 

O stands on burning desert sands at a crossroads. 

(Literal. Not metaphorical.  
Chon’s influence.)

The fingers of one hand twist with Chon’s. The other holds the gentle memory of a ghost -- a distant memory of a bright smile and kind eyes -- and she’s tender, quiet. She makes herself soft for him. For the boy who wouldn’t even know who she is now. They whisper his name into the night for the first time in forever.

13

Chon and O.

          _Ben_.


End file.
